The 8990B peak power analyzer is a high performance RF peak power meter specializing in the measurement and analysis of RF pulses. The 8990B achieves 5 ns rise/fall time (with the N1923A/N1924A wideband power sensor), the fastest overall rise/fall time in the peak power measurement market, allowing R&D engineers and technicians to capture shorter pulse measurements with high accuracy during the module design, verification and troubleshooting process. 

The 8990B comes with two RF channels and two video channels and measures the dynamic or time-dependent aspects of RF and microwave power. With the 8990B’s sampling rate of 100 MSa/s, R&D engineers get the high resolution they need to detect abnormalities in a signal trace for design improvement.

The 8990B peak power analyzer is equipped with a 15 inch XGA color touchscreen display that is capable of simultaneously displaying four channel results for more image detail. The 8990B provides internal and external trigger functions, and comes with 15 pulse parameter measurements and markers measurements including rise time, fall time, pulse droop, pulse width and time delay. 

The 8990B achieves the best performance for peak power measurement when used with the N1923A (50 MHz to 18 GHz) and N1924A (50 MHz to 40 GHz) wideband power sensors.  

Multi-pulse measurement
View, measure and analyze continuous pulse trains from power amplifier modules or transmitters. The multi-pulse measurement feature allows continuously trigger and capture up to 512 pulses. This feature also adds pulse-to-pulse measurement and histogram distribution graph capabilities to the 8990B, which are crucial for testing RF and the pulse-to-pulse stability of power amplifiers and transmitters. Additionally, users can use the multi-pulse measurement feature to analyze short pulse with long off time or amplitude droop across the pulse train, or monitor the stability of the pulse shape (via the histogram graph functionality).

Power-Added Efficiency math function
Calculate the Power-Added Efficiency (PAE) of power amplifiers and display instant PAE traces onscreen with the 8990B. Power-Added Efficiency, a typical power analyzer measurement, is a measure of the power conversion efficiency – the percentage of DC power converted to RF power in the power amplifier of power amplifiers. Reduce test costs and the number of test equipment needed with the 8990B; the peak power analyzer measures RF power, voltage and current in a single solution box. The 8990B’s two RF input channels allow users to measure the RF power gain from the power amplifier; using a DC current probe, scope probe or differential probe, they can also measure the power amplifier’s voltage and current through the analog video input channels. The 8890B’s PAE math function then uses the measurements from the RF and analog video input channels to easily determine the PAE of the power amplifier.

Adjustable ETS threshold for wider bandwidth measurement
Measure peak and peak-to-average of 802.11ac wide bandwidth signal accurately with the 8990B’s 160 MHz video bandwidth capability. The peak power analyzer can execute power vs. time (PvT) measurements on an 80 MHz or 160 MHz 802.11ac signal by adjusting the ETS threshold according to the burst length. Users can also use the zoom function to analyze and measure the preamble power of the 802.11ac burst signal.